Create a Data Access Object for Placid Data using JDBI

JDBI is a SQL convenience library for Java that exposes two different style APIs, a fluent style and a SQL object style. The CData JDBC Driver for Placid integrates connectivity to live Placid data in Java applications. By pairing these technologies, you gain simple, programmatic access to Placid data. This article explains how to build a basic Data Access Object (DAO) and the accompanying code to read Placid data.

Create a DAO for the Placid Collections Entity

The interface below declares the desired behavior for the SQL object to create a single method for each SQL statement to be implemented.

public interface MyCollectionsDAO {
  //request specific data from Placid (String type is used for simplicity)
  @SqlQuery("SELECT  FROM Collections WHERE  = :")
  String findBy(@Bind("") String );

  /*
   * close with no args is used to close the connection
   */
  void close();
}

Open a Connection to Placid

Collect the necessary connection properties and construct the appropriate JDBC URL for connecting to Placid.

Placid uses API Key authentication to control access to the API. API tokens are project-specific and can be obtained from your project settings on placid.app.

Using API Key Authentication

To obtain your API key, log in to placid.app, navigate to your project, open the project settings, and generate an API token from the API section. Note that each API token is scoped to a specific project.

After setting the following connection properties, you are ready to connect:

• AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
• APIKey: Set this to your Placid project API token.

Example connection string:

Profile=C:\profiles\Placid.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_project_api_token';

Built-in Connection String Designer

For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Placid JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

java -jar cdata.jdbc.api.jar

Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

A connection string for Placid will typically look like the following:

jdbc:api:Profile=C:\profiles\Placid.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_project_api_token';

Use the configured JDBC URL to obtain an instance of the DAO interface. The particular method shown below will open a handle bound to the instance, so the instance needs to be closed explicitly to release the handle and the bound JDBC connection.

DBI dbi = new DBI("jdbc:api:Profile=C:\profiles\Placid.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_project_api_token';");
MyCollectionsDAO dao = dbi.open(MyCollectionsDAO.class);

//do stuff with the DAO

dao.close();

Read Placid Data

With the connection open to Placid, simply call the previously defined method to retrieve data from the Collections entity in Placid.

//disply the result of our 'find' method
String  = dao.findBy("");
System.out.println();

Since the JDBI library is able to work with JDBC connections, you can easily produce a SQL Object API for Placid by integrating with the CData JDBC Driver for Placid. Download a free trial and work with live Placid data in custom Java applications today.